Cycle
by Rethira
Summary: The cycle continues. Forever and always, it continues.


Yeah, I don't think anything I can say will make this make sense. It's sort of based loosely off of the reports in Duodecim.

Warnings: weirdness, deliberate run-on sentences

Disclaimer: I do not own Dissidia or any characters therein. I make no money from this fanfiction.

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><p>Kain stumbles and falls. The manikins swarm in the distance and they are falling. They cannot hold back the tide, but – Lightning's blade flies through the air, and Kain can see through the mist in his eyes, that the manikins are fading. They have gone. He hears Lightning fall as well, a thump to the ground, and then the darkness comes.<p>

When he opens his eyes, Kain knows he is dying. He and the others – Laguna, Vaan, Yuna, Tifa and Lightning – are fading away. Their forms are disappearing... but the others are borne into the air on wings of fire and given new life. Three new warriors are in their ranks, to take the places that the six of them are vacating. The Warrior stands and looks at them, his armour battered and his face desperate. Cosmos too, floats in the sky, just asleep, waiting for the dragon to wake her anew. And then they are leaving, going, and Kain can see Cecil amongst the others and he hopes – just for the second before he leaves – that Cecil never remembers this cycle.

Lightning leaves last, and they rest.

The Warrior falls at last, and any memory of the six who saved them all is lost.

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><p>Waking to life, the dragon cries and whimpers. There are things in the futurepastnow and the dragon doesn't know. Doesn't understand. It flies again, beautiful and deadly and the goddess wakes in fire and ash. Her husband stands above her and he says then 'Look to the child, my dear, look to the child' and she screams <em>Chaos!<em> and races to him, her child, her monstrous child and she knows she never was real, but she looks like his mother and she looks like her husband's wife and the dragon flies above them, wings of fire burning a path through the air.

Glittery beings of crystal walk the land and the goddess holds her child close and kisses his deformed head and she can see hatred and anger and love in his burning red eyes. He is not her child, all of that is gone, and he is not a monster either, but he was a weapon gone horribly wrong and now she must calm him. Her husband watches from a distance, Cid of the Lufaine, the scientist and her creator. Perhaps. She does not know. Her true self is gone, lost to the ages, and she is only the goddess of harmony now, the sole force that keeps her child in check. And even then, she can never raise her hand against him. She burnt before, and her screams echoed in her child's skull. She was shot, but did not die. He tore the world asunder, and hatred filled him.

The dragon is above her and around her and its light plays on her skin. Her husband stands aloof, and he is not her husband. He is a watcher, he made her Warrior and she remembers her Warrior standing before her, about to die, and she moved forwards and took the blow meant for him. _Cosmos! _he had screamed, and he is her child too. The world is crumbling, fading away to nothing, her child's power ripping it in two, even though she cradles him in her arms. And then –

A warrior, one of her child's, stumbles out of the dark and the fire. The dragon ignores him, still trailing fire in its wake. And she knows this warrior – he is her child, younger and saner and forgetful. Her child not yet made, and she chooses to send him back – backbackback – to the beginning. The world is consumed by dark and fire and ash and the dragon claims it. The goddess perishes, cradling her child. Her husband slips away, he and the dragon together, and her child in the warrior becomes just her child, to fight forever. She will always make this choice, she will always begin the cycle anew, she will always force the fight again and again. That is what she will do for her child.

_I'm sorry_ she whispers into his mind.

The dragon wakes and the goddess summons a memory, and her husband crafts a lone Warrior with no name and no purpose and the war begins again.

* * *

><p>Kain stumbles and falls. The manikins swarm in the distance and they are falling. They cannot hold back the tide, but – Lightning's blade flies through the air, and Kain can see through the mist in his eyes, that the manikins are fading. They have gone. He hears Lightning fall as well, a thump to the ground, and then the darkness comes.<p>

When he opens his eyes, Kain knows he is dying. He and the others – Laguna, Vaan, Yuna, Tifa and Lightning – are fading away. Their forms are disappearing... but the others are borne into the air on wings of fire and given new life. Three new warriors are in their ranks, to take the places that the six of them are vacating. The Warrior stands and looks at them, his armour battered and his face desperate. Cosmos too, floats in the sky, just asleep, waiting for the dragon to wake her anew. And then they are leaving, going, and Kain can see Cecil amongst the others and he hopes – just for the second before he leaves – that Cecil never remembers this cycle.

Lightning leaves last, and they rest.

The Warrior falls at last, and any memory of the six who saved them all is lost.

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><p>Thanks for reading.<p>

_Rethira_


End file.
